Amorralok Week
by Katabatics
Summary: From the November Amorralok Week on Tumblr, a set of disjointed one-shots in which Korra fails to regain her bending and winds up seeking help and sanctuary in Noatak and Tarrlok's remote home in the north. Rated M.
1. Polar

1._ Polar  
_

* * *

_Windy_ was too simple a word for this particular part of the world, where ever-present gusts swept unimpeded over the bare landscape, running full force into any individual unfortunate enough to be trekking across it. Just _moving_ was a battle, and more than once a particularly hearty blast had been enough to overbalance Korra, tipping her into the damp, springy tundra. Her palms were speckled with bits of green and brown from where she'd caught herself from falling; trying to wipe it away just added clammy smears to her clothes.

Relief came when she was able to push the wind aside with airbending. She took advantage of the relief to sweep her hair out of her eyes but the clumsy motion disrupted her form and the onslaught returned. Korra spluttered as a lock of hair plastered itself inside her mouth.

Pulling it back would have helped, but she'd let her ponytails down days ago in an attempt to move unnoticed through the latest string of rural towns. It turned out to be an unnecessary touch. The further north she got, the less interested residents became in a newcomer and in the last one no one had even spared her a glance. Still she left her hair loose, holding onto to some dim idea of going incognito on this mission.

This place made her homesick for the poles themselves, where unfeeling arctic surroundings brought people closer. _Community _was beyond important, a truth that everyone knew. Even in the uniquely cloistered White Lotus compound, Korra had been made to understand how much it mattered to give and accept help from those around you. Without support, even the best hunter, the most talented waterbender, would struggle to survive in the snowy expanse. Everyone was family, doors were open and welcoming to neighbors and strangers alike. In the Water Tribe, the saying went, you're never alone.

Here, though, it _was_ possible to eke out an existence apart from your neighbors. The iron-grey skies and featureless earth attracted shuttered, solitary people. They kept to themselves, Korra had learned, and expected the same of others. It was a perfect place for anyone looking to start over, a place to shed old identities and disappear from the world.

_Of course, he would have learned as much from his father,_ Korra thought as the house came into view beyond a small hillock. The two-story structure was plain, sticking straight out of the tundra without so much as a garden or a porch to distinguish it as a place where anyone had made a life.

Another gust of wind scraped past. The walk had taken longer than Korra had expected, it was growing late and she felt raw, exhausted. She was starting to realize that Republic City had softened her—traveling city streets sheltered by buildings all around had left her unused to this kind of exposed long-distance hike. Maybe it'd been a bad idea to leave Naga behind; but she didn't want anyone from her old life around for this last desperate attempt to reclaim her worth to the world.

There was no sheltering cover around the house, and she knew going back to the town would just be twice as miserable. She hesitated, shifting from foot to foot until a flicker above the house caught her eye. Faint, wispy smoke was rising from a chimney, blown into horizontal dispersion by the wind almost as soon as it appeared.

She looked back at the windows. Too far away for her to see through them; but anyone inside could have stood at one and watched her approach from a mile away.

Korra huffed into her hands to warm them—plain air, no fire, she still wasn't used to that—and forced herself to move forward. Tired or not, she was here and she wasn't going back until she'd faced Amon and gotten him to restore her bending.

Up close, Korra could just make out an orange glow through one of the windows. Was it her imagination, or was there a shadow moving in there too? She took one last deep breath, closed her eyes and hammered on the door resolutely.

No answer.

Not so much as a muffled noise behind the solid dark wood. She imagined him on the other side, listening with that tilted permanent smile—except he probably wasn't wearing the mask anymore. She tried to think of his face and came up with a distant blur topped by thick black eyebrows and a shock of hair.

She hadn't really prepared for the possibility that he would just ignore her. What would the old Korra have done? _Kick down the door, flood the house with water, set him on fire._ But that wouldn't work here. Aside from the obvious limitations, threats and violence would just escalate into another losing battle. She _had_ to try diplomacy, or at least something like it.

She knocked again, and raised her voice. "Hello? Anyone home?"

Silence. Korra shuffled her feet, tucked her hands into her pockets. If that's how he wanted to play it, then fine. She'd just take a look around the rest of the structure; see if there were any doors or windows that just happened to be open. There was no harm in _looking_.

She turned around_._ A man in a plain brown parka was standing directly behind her, unmoving. His arms were piled high with cut wood. Korra jumped, a moment before she took in the pale skin, the thick eyebrows drawn downward.

"Amon." Her voice was hoarse and she tried to clear her throat. "Uh, Noatak?"

He gave a slow nod.

The self-righteous bravado that had driven her here dissolved like smoke from the chimney. What was she supposed to say to this complete stranger?

He took a step toward her, and she backed up instinctively. Her back hit the door as he stepped again and she put up her hands. "Wait, I don't want to fight…" She trailed off as he shifted the stack to one arm and used the other to push her aside. He turned the handle on the door and opened it, stepping inside.

Korra's feet reacted faster than her brain. She flung herself against the open door, blocking him as he tried to close it. "Hey!"

A minor struggle ensued as Noatak tried to force the door closed with one hand while Korra pushed against it. "I just want to talk!"

He grimaced, and let go altogether. Korra fell forward and stumbled across the threshold. He stood motionless again, watching as she righted herself, her face growing hot.

"Talk." It was the first thing he'd said.

Korra clenched her fists, summoned the speech she'd worked and reworked over the last few days. _Here goes nothing_

She knelt and placed her palms flat on the floor in a show of absolute humility. "I came here to ask you to restore my bending. Please. I—I know that you took it for a reason, but without it I can't help anyone, benders or non-benders." A tremor added an embarrassing warble to her words and she curled her hands up tight. "I will do everything I can to make sure that the Equalists are heard in Republic City, and that the things you fought for aren't forgotten. But nobody will listen to the Avatar if—"

"I can't."

Korra's head jerked up, but he'd turned his back on her and was crouched down, setting the wood into a cast iron rack next to the door. The room around them was made of the same dark, aging wood as the house's exterior, dominated on one side by a fireplace holding a dying fire. Beyond it she could see a darkened stairway and a hall of doors that were all closed.

He finished arranging the logs, leaving a few to the side, and turned around. "Did you hear me?"

"But you did it," she said, forcing the words past a tightening throat. "You should be able to undo it." Tears gathering behind her eyes _no, not now, not now, I forbid you from crying_…

Noatak stood with easy grace and looked down at her. "It can't be _undone_, Avatar. The paths of chi are severed. They can't be repaired."

Korra stared back down at her clenched hands turning white. Her breath came quick. She'd always known that was a possibility, even Katara hadn't been able to help, but if he couldn't then it meant there was no hope left. A ringing rose in her ears, the chant of all her past lives _you have failed Avatar you have failed_.

She heard shouting, and it was her voice, _no, you have to fix it you have to, _getting louder with each word. She was standing, gripping the trim on the front of his parka. Her voice cracked. "You invented it, you have to have some idea how to fix it, how to take it back…"

Amon looked back, his face unreadable. Her despair spilled over, it was acid, she was nothing now, nothing and how dare he do this to her and look so calm? Korra shoved forward until they hit the wall next to the rack of wood. "You owe me, you liar, you hypocrite, you thief!" She was going to kill him, she'd crush that closed-off face into pieces. She swung a fist.

He caught it in one hand, the first time he'd moved since she'd grabbed him. "Control yourself, Avatar."

Fury overcame her. Korra drew back, yanking her hand away and struck again. He dodged to the side, out of her grasp, then grabbed her arm and pivoted her to the open door. He shoved her outside. "We have nothing more to discuss."

Korra had a brief glimpse of him leaning down to pick up the remaining logs, unconcerned, before the door swung shut

"Amon!" she shouted. "Amon! Come back here and fight!" She threw herself on the door again, pounded on it, the strength of her voice swept away by the rising wind. There was nothing left, three elements were lost to her, she'd never reach them again. She was useless now, _Korra_ was just a wasteland in which the Avatar spirit wandered, lost. She fell back to her knees, _no point in holding back tears, who's left to have dignity for_?

The sun had set and the wind sharpened painfully in the waning light, working beneath her clothes and freezing her skin. Korra remained bowed over at the door, hair falling ragged around her face as she crushed her hands to her mouth, muffling her sobs. Alone, she was alone, Naga, her parents, Tenzin, Mako, everyone belonged to a different Korra, someone who had no right to be.

Light shone between her fingers, and she was too far gone to think what it meant until the wind ceased, blocked by something—someone standing, now crouching beside her. She lifted her face and for one bewildering moment it looked like Amon had come back, but wearing a different coat and with longer hair; and she realized who she was seeing—Tarrlok, looking at her sadly, his hand on her back between her shuddering shoulders.

She stared, jolted from misery temporarily by confusion. It had never occurred to her that Tarrlok might have left with Amon—Noatak—his brother; but then she hadn't given much thought at all to his disappearance, hadn't thought about anything except her bending and the Avatar line.

And Amon had come _here_, to this place where people went because they could live without others, wanted to live apart. Why would he bring Tarrlok along? The selfish thought drifted past _did he get back his bending _and Korra pushed it away shamefully. She wiped her nose on her sleeve and said nothing. Either way, there was nothing Tarrlok could do to help and what was he even doing putting his arm around her?

"It's too cold to be out here alone," he said simply. He started to rise, pulling her along and she let him. "Come inside."

Had she been less enervated, less stripped and utterly weary, she might have thought better of it. But he was warm, and solid, and in that he was a respite, however brief, from desolate abandonment. _In the Water Tribe, you're never alone. _

Tarrlok led Korra through the doorway and inside, where the rekindled fire was burning.


	2. Haunted

2._ Haunted_

* * *

"He didn't really want to come here," Tarrlok told her. He leaned back against the wall next to her and draped his arms over his knees. "It was my idea. He wanted to travel the world; he figured there was nothing we couldn't do together." He stopped; shoulders dropping and hands clenching and loosing, fingers shuffling together, apart.

Some dismal memory had snagged him again, pulling him out of the quiet warmth they shared. Korra shifted on the bed and moved closer to him.

Nights when she couldn't sleep, and couldn't stand to stare out at the achingly empty landscape, this was her habit: she padded down the hall to Tarrlok's room and listened at his door. If his breaths were heavy enough to hear, she left him to his sleep.

Sometimes, when that happened and she was feeling especially restless, she would move on to Noatak's room. She always regretted it—Noatak's distant remove was somehow worse when they were sharing a bed—but it was better than trying to get through the long night with nothing to distract her but the wind outside.

First though, she looked to Tarrlok; and if she heard only silence from his room it meant he was awake too. Then she could push the door open with a quiet rap and join him on the bed as he drew his legs up to make room. It happened so often that words weren't really needed. Korra would curl up into herself as he passed over one of the faded quilts that had come with the house; and she would lean against Tarrlok and he against her, in mutual understanding of the reasons for their insomnia.

Tenzin would have had gone into conniptions at the scene, his protégé cuddled up each night with the former councilman. But Tarrlok was her companion in the shifting uncertainty of Amon's aftermath, left like her with no identity and too empty to care; and it left _him_, at least, too distracted to be interested in anything more interesting.

Mostly, they talked quietly. During the worst nights early on, it had just been Korra spilling her every failure and anxiety as Tarrlok listened. His silent glance never held the overt pity that had made the faces of family and friends unbearable, and he left her side only to fetch a handkerchief when she started sniffling into the quilt.

Despair ran its course over the following months but sleep was still elusive, and so Korra kept listening at Tarrlok's door. Eventually they settled on more trivial topics: sharing small stories about their past (Tarrlok's were always much more interesting), comparing the poles (the South had more snow), even the weather here (always bad).

For all that Korra wanted solitude these days, she'd found she didn't mind sharing it with Tarrlok. But he was also prone to long spells of flat depression, running deeper than the everyday unhappiness they bonded over. It worried her. In those times, he reminded her of the man she'd found in the Air Temple prison, hopeless and faded.

Tarrlok didn't react now when Korra settled by his side, so she poked his arm lightly. "Then he stayed here for you?" she prompted.

He stirred and made a derisive noise. "For a little while. He was ready to leave after a few months, with or without me. Noatak is not one for settling down."

Korra imagined Tarrlok ghosting about in this place alone and pulled the quilt around her tighter. She frowned. "But you'd been here for six months before I arrived. Why's he still here?"

Tarrlok fixed her with a pointed look, one eyebrow tilting up. "Why do you think?"

Of course, there were still times when the canny politician Tarrlok showed up to make her feel hopelessly dim. Korra worked through it, staring at a patch of moonlight on the wooden floor. "…Me?"

Tarrlok confirmed with a slight inclination of his head.

"Noatak." She didn't try to hide her flat disbelief. "Stayed in the armpit of the nowhere. For me. The person he hates more than anyone."

Tarrlok shrugged. "All I know is, I haven't heard a thing about 'moving on' since you got here."

"Maybe he just enjoys seeing me suffer," she offered. Tarrlok shook his head.

"He's not like that, Korra."

She could think of several examples that strongly suggested otherwise. But Tarrlok had heard them all before and Korra had given up, because was the point of kicking at his faith in Noatak anyway?

"If you say so," she finally said. The whole line of thought was making her uncomfortable and she put it aside, yawning and settling against his arm. "And what about you?" she asked, as if it were an afterthought.

"What about me?'

"Who are you staying here for?"

Tarrlok was silent for a moment. "Myself, I suppose. I've done enough damage in the world."

"And me?"

She'd thought the words, but in her cozy, drowsy state they tumbled out of her mouth instead.

Tarrlok was the opposite of Noatak, never made any advances; but there _was_ something in his closeness that still made Korra think about what could be. The wiry muscles in his bare arms, the long, loose hair falling about his handsome, troubled face gave Tarrlok an undeniable appeal. She remembered the party he threw for her in Republic City, the tension in her stomach when he kept placing his hand on the small of her back.

Tarrlok looked up at the ceiling. Korra cringed and inched away.

"Korra," he said, with a sigh. "The things I've done…they stay with me. I don't have a right to ask for anything from anyone, let alone you."

"And Noatak does?"

"That's between you and him."

Korra thumped the bed, suddenly annoyed that it had to be _Tarrlok _turning her down. The part of her that might have once balked at the thought of _chasing_ the older man, while involved—or something—with _his brother_ no less, was long gone, sent packing along with the rest of her right-minded Avatar self. She wanted him, wanted a mutual escape from the despair that Noatak would never understand. "I don't care anymore, you know that. About the bloodbending, the cabin—I know it was a mistake, you've said so—"

"It's more than that," Tarrlok interrupted, running a hand over his eyes. He was looking drawn again, and Korra started to regret going down this path. "It's the way I—we—ended up so close to…"

He trailed off, hands twitching again. Finally he pushed himself off the bed and walked over to the window. Moonlight leached the color from his skin and clothes, giving him an otherworldly air. When he spoke, it was with a heavy voice. "I nearly killed us both because of it. When we were leaving Republic City, Noatak and me. I tried to blow up the boat, and he stopped me."

Korra let the confession run over her, reshaping the Tarrlok she knew, deepening the shadows around him. Sadness unspooled in her chest.

She'd never worked up the courage to ask Tarrlok about what exactly lay behind his persistent, recurring unhappiness; in all the nights that she'd cried over losing her bending, failing as the Avatar, he'd never volunteered his own sorrows. She knew the basic sketch, the harsh life under Yakone, the regret over bloodbending, the bittersweet discovery that his brother was Amon; but not the depth to which it all affected him.

What had it been like in this desolate place before she arrived? Two brothers alone together, one believing so completely they were both better off dead and the other knowing his role in creating that belief. It hurt to even imagine.

Korra slid forward off the bed and joined Tarrlok where he stood, wrapping her arms around him in sympathy and silent apology. Tarrlok was still in the embrace for a moment; then his arm lifted around her, followed by the other. She felt his breath settle over her hair—warm, alive, when it so easily might not have been—and an anxious twinge of melancholy made her tighten her arms. Tarrlok huffed a strained laugh. "Ah, Korra…"

"Right, right, sorry." Still, she held on tight for a moment more, cheek resting against his chest, before releasing him and looking away. She hoped it was too dark for him to see the blush running up her face.

An awkward silence settled around them. Tarrlok broke it by leaning forward, one hand on her shoulder, and giving her a gentle kiss on the forehead. "Thank you."


	3. Masks

3. _Masks_

* * *

It was Tarrlok's fault, his stupid suggestion that settled itself in her head and turned round and round, ruining the state of unthinking that let her deal with Noatak, the abject _want_ that usually buried any thought of import or consequence to the things they did together.

_He's staying here for you_.

Noatak's arm around her waist became a tug, pulling her into the kitchen. It was dumb, Korra decided, as he wrapped himself around her, not speaking. The whole idea was dumb. For all of Tarrlok's sharp insight, he had a major blind spot when it came to his brother. She should have known better than to bring Noatak up with him.

Yet there it was, _he's here for you_ surfacing with the brush of teeth on her neck, the undignified noises muffled against her skin, the eagerness he showed _here_ that he showed nowhere else.

She'd long ago concluded that "Amon" had just been an excuse for Noatak to be the power-tripping madman he always wanted to be. Here, with a flock of just two, he no longer needed the mask.

But now there was doubt, even as his fingers dug in—Korra hissed and jerked her arm away, and he nipped her hard in response—a faint thought that maybe there really was affection in this, not just pursuit of satisfaction.

As if hearing her thoughts, Noatak switched to gentle caresses, earnest kisses moving up her neck. She sighed a little—the change was nice, not to mention rare—and shifted against him, letting her fingers run through his hair. If she closed her eyes, it could almost feel romantic.

Another half-stifled moan dispelled her rosy thoughts, as he lifted her onto the rickety table behind them, pressing forward between her legs. He was back to moving things right along, fingers just pushing up the hem of her shirt, breath erratic as he worked his mouth formlessly along her ear and she was no good at reading people, it was a useless distraction to try reading motivations in this state. Korra buried her face in Noatak's shoulder, willing the notion to go away so she could just come undone in the surging need, ignore everything but the heated, overwhelming presence of him so close.

_He'd _started it all a few months ago, sweeping her up for a bizarre kiss in the middle of one of her half-hearted snipes at him and for a moment Korra assumed it was just some new grasp at control mixed with plain desire. She should have shoved him off then and there, handed him at least one more loss in his lifetime.

But instead she discovered a whole new way to be helpless. And in the guilty afterglow, where she kind of wanted to kick him away and kind of wanted to go again, she realized that he had once again uncovered another side of her, another shameful weakness that could never have belonged to the Avatar Korra—only to the unformed, purposeless girl underneath.

Noatak pressed forward again, steady and insistent, until she was laid on the table beneath him. She arched up to meet his warmth, his solid weight and her fingers tightened in his hair as his hands moved higher. But maybe—maybe there was more—

"Avatar," he breathed against her ear, and it snapped her back to clarity. Noatak never did call her by her name, and wasn't that a mark against Tarrlok's theory? And suddenly it wasn't enough to wonder in spaces between the writhing coils of desire, she had to _know_.

Korra untangled her hands and set a palm against his chest. Uncertainty seeped in: interrupting him like this was sailing into uncharted waters. "Stop."

Noatak obeyed immediately, to her mild surprise. He raised his head to regard her, pale eyes darkened, but remained where he was; propped on his elbows and oh, so_ close_. He said nothing. _Of course_. Their breaths were heavy in the silence between them.

Uncertainty gave way to an actual flutter of nervousness, and where did that come from? She was no stranger to confronting him. Korra pushed herself upright and Noatak backed away, until they were facing each other. Her gaze was level with his sharp, neatly shaved jaw and a longing impulse told her to pull him close again and just forget this. She forced herself to look up, straight into his eyes.

"Why do you stay here?"

Not _why are we doing this_ or _what kind of fucked-up relationship is this?_ or any of the other questions she probably should have asked, but it was a start.

Noatak's eyes darted away and he turned his head to look off to the side. His short sideburns were tufted out where she'd run her hands up his face—trying to get around to pull free that ponytail that she hated—and his hair was mussed. He looked strangely…soft in profile.

Korra realized he was hesitating. Noatak—Amon—didn't hesitate.

His eyebrows pinched together slightly. "I'm concerned about Tarrlok," he said finally, apparently speaking to the cupboards to his left.

"Tarrlok said you were ready to leave him after a few months."

Noatak's head snapped back to her so quickly that Korra flinched a little. Though circumstances between them had changed drastically—_drastically_—her nerves still carried the memory of when every encounter with him left her shaking in terror. She looked down and tugged at her shirt to cover for it, smoothing the folds where his hands had been smoothing carefully against her skin, and up…

"I was," he said. "Then you arrived."

Korra's heart thumped. She lifted her eyes to his again. "And?"

He met her gaze this time. "And considering that you drove him to bloodbend for the first time in over twenty-five years, I thought it a bad idea to leave him alone with you again." The softness was gone, if it had ever really been there. Noatak folded his arms behind his back and looked on with chill disdain.

Outrage choked off any words, flaring through her and extinguishing the last trace of blinding desire. She shoved him back with both hands and hopped off the table. "You think that was my fault!?" Her voice came out shriller than she intended. This had not gone how she thought it would. _How she wanted it to go_. A tiny awareness threaded its way through her anger as she looked into his intense, striking face. His hair was still in disarray. Damn Tarrlok and his fuzzy late-night theories.

Oh well, she'd wanted a confrontation. "And bloodbending's not exactly a problem anymore, is it, thanks to you! _You're _the reason he's like this!" They both knew what _this_ meant. Korra poked an accusing finger into Noatak's chest, a breathtakingly reckless move, even for her.

Noatak's expression turned stormy, darker than she could ever remember seeing on him. _Good_.

"I don't have to explain my actions to you," he said tersely. He dropped his arms back to his sides, hands relaxed; but she could see a surging anger of his own straining against his composure.

Maybe this was for the best, fighting was still what she was good at, with or without bending. And getting him to this state was a thrilling victory in itself. In all her time here, Korra had never been able to drive him to a breaking point, cause in him anything like damage he'd done to her. He could bloodbend her into a pretzel now for all she cared, at least she'd finally struck something personal in him.

"Huh." She raised a hand to her chin in false thoughtfulness. "You know what I think? I think you stay because you've got everything you want right here. The Avatar and your brother, together." Korra tapped her chest, a manic sense of defiance spurring her on. "We're a better _prize_ for you than all of Republic City, right?"

Noatak moved fast, seizing her wrist and gripping the back of her neck. He held her there for a heartbeat, glaring—she glared back, _can't back down_—then bent down to catch her in a hard, unromantic kiss.

He broke it off just as suddenly, keeping her close against him. "You caught me," he said, in that low, low voice that was once the source of such fear. His hold was too tight, turning painful; his thumb dug into a point just behind her ear and her fingers were starting to lose feeling. "What are _you_ going to do about it, _Avatar_?"

_Avatar_ was deliberate this time, a reminder that they both knew the answer was _nothing_. And it did hurt, even more than his grip did, but it wasn't like he had to dig deep to expose those undercurrents of pain. She'd fled her duties and thrown her lot in with an unrepentant villain, sure, because what good was an Avatar who could only bend air? He was just trying to retaliate, seize control, break her down to win like he always did.

Korra drew her knee back and struck up into Noatak's groin.

When he doubled over she set her hands on his shoulders and shoved him away from her, then swiveled around and marched out of the kitchen. A slight shiver ran under her skin, that nerve-memory again of inhuman swiftness and strength, but she forced herself to move normally, footsteps steady and even. She reached the front entryway, yanking her parka from its peg and shoving her arms into the sleeves before flinging open the door.

Korra stepped out into the gray daylight and kicked the door shut behind her. She listened, but there was nothing but silence. A minute relief rippled through her.

She was going to find Tarrlok and she was going to punch him in the face. Noatak, as in Tarrlok's precious older brother concerned with equality and fairness and rainbows was dead. Or, more likely, had never existed.

_Maybe_ at one time Tarrlok's theory could have been true, she allowed, rounding the corner and heading toward the rear of the house. But everything Noatak did now was motivated by an innate hunger for control.

And she…stayed with him, broken lost and dependent, though she could surely go back to her parents, or Tenzin or even the White Lotus. But that was Amon's effect: he drew people unwilling into his orbit, and left them desperate for a look their way.

She slowed as she neared the worn barn behind the house, and shouldered open the heavy door. The warm smell of animal hair and musk rolled out. Tarrlok looked up, halting his brushing. He always tactfully found other places to be when she and his brother were together.

Korra's boots crunched on the hay as she walked up to him. He was thinner than he had been in Republic City, a shadow of the sophisticated politician she'd loathed, towering confidence and bending stripped away in one. He was also almost hilariously softhearted, doting as he did now on the ox goat and three buffalo yaks they kept for transportation.

Not that she could judge. She was so far from her old self that the vital, proud Avatar who'd never give up felt like a stranger. She'd believed all her life it was who she was at the core, but Amon had made it all fall away with a twist of his hand.

And Tarrlok, in all his priceless, 38-year-old naivety believed it was because his older brother was secretly good at heart, secretly cared about them. _About her_.

She stopped before the aforementioned idiot, her friend and confidante of the past months. "Korra?" he began and stopped as she drew a fist back. She held it there for a moment, brought her arm up and around the back of his neck, and pulled his mouth down onto hers.

* * *

_A/N: I am very new to writing and will treasure and delight in your merciless critical reviews that point out everything I'm doing wrong._


End file.
